The Young Scientists Club (YSC) was just recently founded by Kim Joana Westerich und Lara Marie Siebert-Kuss for PhD, medical and master students of our CRU and associates. Besides aiming at connecting with each other, the YSC wants to strengthen the visibility of young researchers in- and outside of the CRU. To this end, the YSC offers networking events in a casual environment to allow students to get to know each other, connect and exchange on a regular basis.

Stay tuned on our up-coming events and get-togethers at our website. If you don’t want to miss an event, feel free to contact Kim Joana Westerich or Lara Marie Siebert-Kuss and they will add you to the YSC mailing-list.

On November 30, we launched our new online workshop format revolving around the 'Genetic Landscape of Reproductive Health' organised by our CRU326! Renowned national as well as international experts were invited to present and discuss the underlying mechanisms of the changing genome and the impact of genetic alterations on germ cells, fertility and progeny health.

More than 120 participants from all over the world joined us to learn about genetic topics of Reproductive Health provided by 6 excellent speakers. The condensed format of the workshop of 4 hours offered highly informing presentations as well as fruitful conversations. We wrapped up the individual presentations with a roundtable discussion chaired by Csilla Krausz to bring together the diverse input from our speakers. Because of the overwhelmingly positive feedback from the audience we consider this workshop a tremendous success which prompted us to immediately start thinking about another workshop with a similar format on another topic for next year.

For more information and updates about further workshops in the near future feel free to visit the website.

We set out from a unique situation in Münster, where multidisciplinary expertise on the biology of male germ cells co-locates in the form of two major andrological and genetic institutions (Centre of Reproductive Medicine and Andrology, CeRA and Institute of Reproductive Genetics, IRG). We have intimately interconnected the CeRA and IRG with groups working on associated phenotypesand/or basic research focussing on primary ciliary dyskinesia (PCD) at the Department of General Paediatrics (DGP), spermatogonial stem cells at the Max Planck Institute (MPI), and research on germ cell migration in zebrafish at the Institute for Cell Biology (ICB). The Institute of Human Genetics in Essen, contributed expertise on epigenetics and we conceived a Core Project (CP) located at the Institute of Medical Informatics (IMI) to address the bioinformatic efforts.

We established three special consultation hours for 'Unexplained Male Infertility' (CeRA), 'PCD and Infertility' (DGP), and 'Reproductive Genetics' (IHG) within the highly interconnected setting of this clinical research unit.

Furthermore, a multidisciplinary case conference with the three clinical partners of the CRU326 - CeRA, Paediatrics, and Genetics - and involving basic scientists was implemented. In these bi-monthly meetings, more than 120 patients were discussed of whom 38 were followed-up in detail because of distinct phenotypes. Remarkably, a genetic diagnosis could be assigned to almost 50% of these patients (18/38), partially in previously unknown genes.

A one-day CRU326 symposium 'Reproduction and beyond' in combination with the 10th anniversary of the CeRA in 2018 was broadly attended, aiming to impart our research propositions to the public. In 2019, a 2-day 'Network Reproduction' meeting was held with >70 researchers working on both the female and male side. For 2020, several CRU326 group leaders co-organise the major 2020 event in 'Andrology' – an unprecedented conference combining meetings of the national, european and international andrological societies.

Complementary public relations comprise the establishment of our very own website (male-germ-cells.de), a ResearchGate profile, a Twitter account (@MaleGermCells), and public video outlets on Instagram or other channels (UKM), facilitating an open and transparent handling of our research.

In ordner to spread the topic of male infertility also with the broader public, we contributed to a number of open-access articles, including content for the UKM magazine PulsSCHLAG (2017 / 2019) or the DFG's journal 'forschung' (2019).